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Suppose you have just been selected to serve on the Worship Commission for a three year term. You came to the yearly Gathering of Ministers as a member of the choir, mostly out of curiosity. To your great surprise you were nominated to serve on the commission and you consented to serve if your name was selected. “What did I get myself into?” you kept saying to yourself on the way home. “I don’t have time for this!”
At the next Common Leadership Meeting of all the commissions those nominated were discerned so that there would be a good mix of ages, cultures and backgrounds. Soon after that meeting you were called and told that you had been chosen. One of the persons going off of the Worship Commission went through the Covenant Booklet with you. This was an orientation manual which eased your hesitations considerably. Quality Time Together: Your first Leadership Night was a fun event, complete with a welcoming of new members and a social afterwards. But it was the body of the meeting that piqued your interest. Everyone was asked to indicate three things that worked over the last year and two things that didn’t work, along with the reasons why or why not. All the commission members were mixed together in random groups so you got a chance to meet more than just those on the Worship Commission. It was an eye-opener all that had happened over the year and what more needed to be done in the next. This evaluation gave you a good grasp of what the leadership of the parish did. This was going to be more interesting and productive that you had imagined. The next month, the May meeting, was the annual goal-setting session. You knew from last month’s evaluation that the number of people attending the weekend liturgies had gone down from the year before. What would turn the numbers around? As commission members suggested possible goals, one person said, “Our goal should be that when people leave church they’re saying, ‘Wow, I want to come back to that!’” This struck a chord in the group, and to make it measurable, you suggested adding, “so that there is a 10% increase in people attending church each week.” As you returned home from the meeting you felt proud you were able to offer something worthwhile. You helped make it a goal worth working on over the next year. Translating Goals Into Action: The June Leadership Night was devoted to mapping out action plans to realize your goal, as well as a time to discern new co-chairs for the coming year and the one new person on the Pastoral Council from the Worship Commission. You breathed a sigh of relief that you weren’t chosen for any of these tasks, but perhaps next year would be the time for you to be either a co-chair leading the meetings or the one of the two representatives from the commission on the Pastoral Council. The July meeting was the time to begin working on the action plans that would raise interest in the parish liturgies and increase attendance. The agreed upon action for this month was to call together all the liturgical ministers, whether lectors, ushers, Eucharistic ministers, presiders, servers, musicians, planners or those planning the art and environment. The purpose was to get them into small groups and brainstorm what more could be done to raise the level of enthusiasm, prayer and participation at all of the Masses. This meeting, planned for the end of August, would set a new tone for the rest of the year. You being on the Worship Commission had made a difference, both to the future of the parish Masses and to your life as well. This is but one example of how to keep interest alive in the commissions by giving the members a sense of worth and accomplishment. This is the way to “keep them coming back for more.” Tom Sweetser, SJ & Peg Bishop, OSF www.pepparish.org Parish Newsletter A Service of the Parish Evaluation Project Milwaukee, Wisconsin April, 2006 Reproduced on the OPRFM website with permission |
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